Innocent Muslims being murdered in India due to Hindu radicalism

Internationally renowned Indian writer and Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, has told ITV News she fears for the survival of her country's democracy due to the unchecked and dangerous rise of Hindu radicalism.

Ahead of India's elections next year, she says we are all "braced for a campaign of blood" after a surge in shocking attacks on Muslims, including many fatal, across the country in recent weeks

• Three train passengers reportedly killed just for being Muslim by a Hindu policeman, who is caught on camera saying afterwards "If you want to live in India then you need to support Modi";

• A 19-year-old deputy Imam killed while sleeping, reportedly by a right-wing Hindu nationalist gang who stabbed him 13 times and torched his mosque;

• Muslim homes and businesses burnt by vigilante Hindu groups, some while police were present, it's claimed;

• Hundreds of Muslim homes being bulldozed to rubble by authorities in one state, leading the regional High Court to question whether it amounts to state sponsored "ethnic cleansing";

• A Hindu militant telling an adulating crowd that if Hindus don't get their way, then blood will be spilt.

It's left communities within India's minority Muslim population grieving, fearing for their lives, and, in the areas impacted, fleeing their homes.

ITV News has travelled across the country filming the impact of the violence and tracked down the relatives and victims of these incidents, some of which are speaking out for the first time.

Syed Saifullah ran a mobile phone store in the central Indian city of Hyderabad. He was on his way home on a cross country train when he was shot dead in cold blood.

ITV News has seen moving footage of Saifullah lying in a pool of blood at the feet of the accused, a Railway Protection Police Officer, who says to the remaining passengers: "If you want to live in India, you need to support Modi."

In other areas, Muslims are losing their homes not due to the actions of these militant groups, but the local authorities.

Nirjari had lived in her home for 50 years until this month when hers and hundreds of other homes in a Muslim majority area of Haryana were demolished by the local state government. The development followed violent and fatal religious clashes between Hindus and Muslims nearby.

When we asked Arundhati about India's status as the world's biggest democracy, she responded: "In my view, it's been in doubt for a long time."

She highlighted how the RSS ideology - which is followed by the ruling BJP party - has from its early days "referred to the Muslims of India, like the Jews of Germany, you know, quite openly"

She added: "But now I'm not just talking about massacres, I'm talking about laws being changed, about people being killed for disagreeing.

"So, we are not just talking about debt and riots and killing and programs, we are talking about the systematic dismantling and repurposing of being in state of being Indian Constitution.

"Hindu radical mobs come out with swords, with guns calling for rape, calling for annihilation. And you know, quite often they are watched by the police, who do not intervene.

"The courts don't do very much. Muslims who protest are either killed, jailed or the houses are demolished summarily.

"So, we can't give up hope, but we are in a very, very precarious situation. We are on our own. No one's going to help. No one can help. And Muslims are very seriously on their own... and vulnerable.

"So, we're in an extremely dangerous position, which of course, the world is not paying much attention to because India is a great market."

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